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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535140">she is your eyes, you are her heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7punk/pseuds/n7punk'>n7punk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Colorblind Catra (She-Ra), Disability, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just some kids inventing their own language, No abuse on screen but Shadow Weaver does exist in this fic unfortunately</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:55:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535140</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/n7punk/pseuds/n7punk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Catra is born different from the other cadets. She can hear footsteps in the distance, knows every one of her squadmates’ scents from a mile off, can track the smallest movements in the dark of night. She-<br/>She doesn’t know what pink is.<br/>(Catra with feline colourblindness, throughout the years)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora/Catra (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Outside of the War - She-ra canon stories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>658</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>she is your eyes, you are her heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415800">My other fic that included colourblind Catra</a> was well received so I thought I would expand on it because I love this headcannon! If you didn’t know, cats and dogs are red colourblind (with faded green perception) and since Noelle has said Catra is “literally a cat” I kind of extended that to Catra, though I made hers more mild - there is quite a range in intensity for colourblind humans, so I am saying the same is true for Magicats.<br/>Another science fact for you before the fic: The more shade names of colours you know, the more shades you are capable of seeing! Because your brain knows to draw distinctions between them, it develops the ability to. I don’t think the Fright Zone would be big on teaching colours, so I feel most of the cadets are pretty colour illiterate, but Catra’s colourblindness would still be significant.</p><p>CONTENT WARNING: there is a single scene with Shadow Weaver and Catra, as well as her being referenced a few times. No punishments take place on screen but unhealthy vibes do. I wanted to depict one of the little moments where things aren’t as bad as they could be – and often are – to show how abuse victims become endeared to their abusers. Fuck that and fuck Shadow Weaver, but it is a reality of life. It is an easy scene to skip past if you don’t want to read it - just go to the next break after Shadow Weaver's opening dialogue line.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They are just two Horde recruits, young enough to get away with pranks like this – or at least, young enough to lie to themselves that they will get away with it. If they get caught, the consequences will be severe regardless of age – but they have to get caught first.</p><p>“Okay, it is almost holding. Just give me the fast-drying glue again. The red tube,” Adora tells her, gap in her teeth whistling with every word as she forces the mis-matched staff halves together. If they manage to switch their custom bo staff for Kyle’s gear without anyone noticing, he is at the very least going to fail their next drill far worse than usual – hopefully he will hit himself in the face trying to open the now-doubly compressed and extended weapon.</p><p>Catra turns to look at the small pile of stolen supplies they have acquired for their engineering project. They had two types of glue, one stronger but slower to dry, required for the long-run survival of their project, and one weak but fast-drying, necessary to keep the thing together until the other glue could set. The tubes look near identical and their labels give nothing away – they only know which is which from intel accidentally-acquired during some highly-illegal sneaking around.</p><p>Catra wrinkles her nose, selecting the darker of the two tubes on a guess. She picks it up and unscrews the cap carefully with her claws, not wanting to get any glue in her fur. That is why Adora, despite being the physically weaker of the two at their soft and clumsy age, is the one holding the bo staff together as it sets, glue all over her hands. Catra edges closer to Adora, holding out the tube to the other girl. Adora looks down at the tube, then blinks up at Catra.</p><p>“That is the gray one. I said red,” she tells her, face crinkling in confusion. Catra feels her fur bristling, defensive and upset.</p><p>“Aren’t they the same?”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Ok, how many different colours do you see here?” Adora asks her, voice determined like they are planning a siege. Catra hunches over the objects Adora has lined up against the wall in this dark, secluded alcove. They have to be secretive about this – partially because Catra has made it very clear how upset she will be if Adora tells anyone, and partially because Adora has taken a big risk stealing all these little objects over the past two weeks.</p><p>Catra does not know what is happening. A truth she thought she had known her entire young life has been thrown back in her face. If anyone but Adora finds out she was so gullible-</p><p>She can’t take that risk. Adora understands – she always has.</p><p>That is why Adora has been flitting around the Fright Zone at night, gathering whatever small objects she can steal in a myriad of colours to help them work out what is going on. It makes an unbidden purr rumble through Catra, claws flexing and unflexing instinctually for reasons she does not understand. She is trying to train herself out of these ingrained habits none of the other cadets seems to have, but in her current state of nerves it is hard to fight off her body’s instincts. She just works her fingers, kneading against the floor as she appreciates the work her friend has done for her. She begins to count.</p><p>A small, round ring - a fastener meant for machinery. It is white – she knows that one, there is no other colour like it. Two rubber bands follow – the only objects Adora did not steal, as she uses them for her hair - one green and one mottled-grey. A small screw, also grey, pried off some piece of machinery. A washer, black and grimy. A muddy grey ration bar. A small scrap of cloth, indistinctly blue and shimmering. A small piece of machine tape, ripped off the side of a pipe it was labelling, in another shade of murky grey. Catra counts the colours, counts the number of objects, and bites back on the feeling of being <em>tricked</em>. Adora would not do that to her. She has taken a big risk to steal all these things – she would not do it just to learn the depths of her weakness.</p><p>“Five,” she admits, finally, biting the word off like it is going to hurt her. Adora blinks up at her.</p><p>“How many of them are grey?” Adora asks now. Catra glares down at the pile. <em>Tricked</em>. She speaks anyway.</p><p>“Four,” she concedes.</p><p>It takes time, but they figure it out. Catra learns to “see” purple, with difficulty, learning that a blue with a lot of grey is likely to be a colour completely unknown to her. Orange is hard – brown even harder – but if she sees a mottled yellow she can usually work her way there. Adora did not steal anything truly blue or yellow, merely directing her to her own reflection, where her mismatched eyes shine back at her clearly.</p><p>Red – and later, once they are able to find an object to test on, pink – are lost on her completely. Over time, she and Adora work out what the problems are – but they never learn <em>why</em>.</p><p>And they never, ever tell anyone else. They may be young, but Catra has already felt Shadow Weaver’s wraith many times. She already knows she is alive only by the grace of Adora’s affections. If Shadow Weaver found out that she was so weak, that she could drag Adora down? Catra shudders at the thought. Even if she was not cut out from Adora’s life completely, the woman would use her weakness against her, somehow, she knows.</p><p>She begs Adora to keep it a secret. Adora goes one further – she accommodates Catra’s weakness, developing a signaling system so with a mere glance to her side, Catra can know what colour she is supposed to be seeing, no words or admissions needed.</p><p>Adora becomes her eyes. It makes Catra’s chest feel like it is bursting with <em>something</em>, even as a spear of ice needles at the back of her mind.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra’s entire body is aching from the effort of keeping it tensed – keeping it from shaking – for so long. Her hands have been clenched in fists for what must have been two hours now as the line has slowly shuffled forward. Behind her, Adora keeps leaning forward to brush against her arm or put a hand on her shoulder. Small, comforting gestures that leave far too soon. They can’t risk someone recognizing the need for comfort and unraveling why it is there during a standard vision test.</p><p>All the cadets in their bracket were lined up early that morning. They have been shuffling through as cadet after cadet went through the test, only taking a few minutes each, but still progressing at an excruciatingly slow pace. Catra is at the front of the line, now, Adora having purposefully taken the spot right behind her.</p><p>“Next!” is called and Catra forces herself to move forward. Her nerves get the best of her and she runs to the chair on all fours, climbing up into it with shaking limbs. She glances to her right. The doorway remains open, the line starting just inside the room before stretching down into the hall. She has a clear line of sight to Adora, but flicking her gaze to the right will be obvious if the instructor cares to follow her gaze.</p><p>Luckily for her, she had insisted they wait near the back of the line. The administrator, a large lizardfolk with a tracker pad held before him, looks annoyed and exhausted after dealing with cadets all morning. He does not even look at Catra as he initiates the test, asking questions about what she can see as he stares down at the pad, marking off answers.</p><p>Catra fights the urge to dig her claws into the chair with every answer she gives. Every time a colour comes up – even just grey – she glances over to Adora. Adora fidgets in place, as if nervous or bored, but Catra knows better. She is doing it to cover up her other movements. She does it to cover up how she wiggles her left ear once – <em>purple</em> – how she taps her left thumb against the knuckle of her index finger – <em>orange </em>– the way her last two fingers on her right hand twitch – <em>true gray</em>.</p><p>The test finishes. The administrator dismisses her with no care in his voice. He sounds just as bored and tired as he had when he greeted her. Catra scampers from the chair, tail lashing anxiously behind her. As she passes Adora she sends her a wide-eyed look. A silent thank you.</p><p>Adora knows she is grateful. She smiles at her brightly as she is called forward herself.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“The purple vial, Catra,” Shadow Weaver demands, hand already reaching out to snatch the potion from Catra. Catra stares down at the table before her and feels fear grip her heart.</p><p>Shadow Weaver had called her to the Black Garnet chamber with no explanation. Not unheard of, though unusual because Catra has not actually <em>done</em> anything recently – but it would not be the first time Shadow Weaver had just decided something was her fault. Or that she just needed to be yelled at for no reason.</p><p>And now, upon entry, Catra is faced with Shadow Weaver hunched over her weird, magic basin. A litany of strange objects are arranged on a table nearby, including two blue vials.</p><p>The fear of discovery has never been so strong. The fear that Shadow Weaver already <em>knows</em>, that the whole reason she has been called here is to expose her.</p><p>“Now, Catra!” Shadow Weaver snaps, pulling her out of her reverie. Catra approaches the table, edging carefully around the shadows lashing around the tattered ribbons at the bottom of Shadow Weaver’s robe.</p><p>She has to move quick – and she has to make the right call. With shaking hands, she reaches down towards the two vials. They look near-identical to her. One blue looks duller, grayer, but it could just be a darker shade. Catra swallows and selects it, extending her arm out as far from her body as it will go to hand it to Shadow Weaver. She does not want to get any closer to the woman than she has to.</p><p>Shadow Weaver does not look up from the basin she is hunched over – she snatches the vial from Catra’s claws, barely glancing at it before she opens it and pours it inside. Catra releases a shaking breath.</p><p>“This spell is delicate. It requires a careful aromatic blend, and a quick hand. You will find the ingredients I require, and you will do so <em>immediately</em>,” Shadow Weaver grinds out. Catra feels her ears twitch in surprise. The explanation is necessary – it tells her what she needs to do, for a start – but it also feels like an unreasonable kindness. An assurance that she is not in trouble, that she is here for her senses that are increased, not the one that is lacking.</p><p>Shadow Weaver does not look up from the basin the whole time Catra is there. She swirls magic symbols into the water as she calls out scents and ingredients. She grabs Catra by the mane when she does not come fast enough, dragging her face down to the bowl to sniff it, requiring her to explain what she detects each time before Shadow Weaver lets out a frustrated hiss and sends her back to get more ingredients.</p><p>The fear that is always present when Shadow Weaver is in the room does not fade – but the rest of it falls away. Catra spends a day with Shadow Weaver, learning about all new smells, plants, crystals, and minerals. It is almost nice – at least compared to the standard for interactions with Shadow Weaver.</p><p>When Catra finally describes a scent that seems to please her superior officer, Shadow Weaver just points a single finger at the door.</p><p>“Leave. I need to begin the ritual,” she hisses. Catra scurries from the room. She makes it two hallways away before she finds herself with her back plastered to the wall, body shaking and trembling. She does not know what is wrong with her. Shadow Weaver was – well, not nice, <em>never</em> nice – but she did not hurt her. She did not suspect her. She did not praise or thank her, she never would, but Catra had been <em>necessary</em> to her, if only for a little while.</p><p>Her body still shakes with fear.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra has always found her own eyes piercing. It may sound narcissistic or vain, but it has nothing to do with her opinion of herself and everything to do with the Fright Zone. The Fright Zone is made almost exclusively of dull, muddy colours. Grays, neutrals, occasional greens. Adora tells her there is plenty of red, some of it dark and dull, some of it vibrant and shining, but she cannot <em>see</em> it, so she lives a life in monotone.</p><p>Blue and yellow, so rarely seen in a place of such darkness, shine with a clarity and brightness that almost always causes her to blink in surprise on the rare occasions she is faced with her own reflection.</p><p>Her one blue eye still cannot hold a candle to Adora’s matching set. Her eyes are cool, clear pools that seem to shine differently when they land on Catra. For a long time, they are the only blue Catra ever knows, ever wants to. She does not think there could be a prettier colour.</p><p>When she sees the new princess, towering and golden in the middle of Thaymor, fear grips her heart, but not for the sake of the battle. The princess decimates the Horde forces and stands serenely in the middle of the battlefield, not even breaking a sweat. For a moment after the chaos of battle and before Catra’s entire life comes crashing down, she turns to face Catra. Their eyes meet and all Catra can think is <em>blue</em>.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Princess Prom falls in her lap like a <em>gift</em>, unbridled joy rolling through her for the first time since Adora left. A perfect opportunity to prove herself, a brilliant plan to enact upon weak, unsuspecting princesses, and best of all, an opportunity to see Adora. To prove to her why she never should have left her.</p><p>It does not occur to her until she is dressing for the event that Adora holds the secret to her one physical weakness. She throws a quickly requisitioned suit over her shoulders, worn purposefully rumpled to hide the fact it is slightly ill-fitting, pants and jacket arms too short and shirt too loose without a pin at the back. She bites back the frustration she feels looking at her grey reflection.</p><p>Adora holds many of her secrets. Vulnerabilities and truths scatter their intertwined pasts, some experienced together and some given freely as knowledge between <em>friends</em>. Emotions and knowledge are just as deadly as physical weaknesses, she knows well, but when Scorpia looks at her hastily acquired suit and practically booms “We match!” she is reminded that no matter how she isolates herself, protects herself against the world and everyone in it, she already gave herself away long ago.</p><p>She does not know what Scorpia is talking about. The suit is grey, like most Horde clothing. Darker, sure, but nothing exciting. Scorpia has not even settled on a dress yet when she makes the announcement. When she does, she is draped in black – Catra thinks. Maybe a red or purple, too indistinctly dark for her to determine. Her heart pangs for Adora, for a glance to her left that would tell her with two knuckle wraps or a single ear wiggle what is supposed to be <em>matching</em> exactly.</p><p>It is only when they are doing a final once over before leaving, both standing side-by-side awkwardly in the thin mirror, that she realizes the gray suit is similar to the shade of Scorpia’s chitin. It makes a bitter taste bloom in her mouth to be marked in such a way towards another person. No one knows her, no one owns her, no one even <em>challenges</em> her now Adora is gone.</p><p><em>(No one loves her</em>.)</p><p>She adjusts the suit and turns away from the mirror. She ignores the violent, niggling ball of self-doubt, self-hatred, self-loathing as she stares down at the muddy shades of gray and guesses.</p><p>
  <em>Pink?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>She has been wearing these stupid, standard issue uniforms in different forms since she was a kid. One leg has tears from an accident where her claws caught it – the other is ripped on purpose to match. Her clothes make no concessions for her as a person aside from the hole for her tail added in the back. A few designs float around the Horde, and she is issued one without care, based entirely on fit and utility. The fabric clings horribly to her fur, sometimes shocking her with static electricity when she pulls it on and off. She always ignores it – the shocks are nothing compared to the discomfort of having her fur tamped down against her skin all day.</p><p>Adora told her she wore red. That it made her stripes look auburn in the light.</p><p>Catra has <em>power</em> now, and she wants to look it as much as she needs to feel it. She wants to look down at Hordak and show him she is not one of his pawns, but a queen all her own. It might not be true – not really – but she has gotten this far by bluffing.</p><p>She has never been one to quit while she is ahead.</p><p>She sketches the design quickly with a black pencil. She doesn’t think about colour, doesn’t care about it – all she cares about is having that one arm covered so when the nightmares and visions come, she has a reason to see her arm in black. She just needs a reason to force the corruption, the portal, <em>Adora</em> from her mind.</p><p><em>Now live with it.</em> She is trying.</p><p>She sends off the requisition. When she receives the uniform, it looks just like the drawing, that damn corrupted shoulder cloaked in black and gray like the rest of the suit. When she wears it for the first time, Scorpia pops up with excitement and says they match again. Catra digs her claws into her palm and keeps walking past her, ignoring the blood dripping down her fingers.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>She hates that it was green – green all around his ship, green liquid drowning her, green shining in her own eyes. Of all the colours, why did it have to be one of the ones she could see?</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>If anyone had ever asked Catra what she would be doing the day after the war is over, all her life she would have only had one of two responses, depending on who won. Either rotting in a cell as she awaits execution or celebrating her conquest as the world’s new leader.</p><p>She never expected to be sitting in Adora’s lap, in the war room of Bright Moon, listening to Sparkles agonize with the other princesses over which roads and trade routes they should focus on re-establishing first to get the world back in order. They could have found Catra her own chair probably – but that would have removed her entire reason for being there. Adora may be a great leader and even a good - if improvisational - strategist when she has the mind, but the finer details of running a kingdom are lost on her. Adora is only here because she has nowhere better to be that would not involve physical exertion, and so Catra is in her lap to keep her still. Despite She-ra safely releasing the Heart, Adora kind of died yesterday, so her body desperately needs rest. Catra has been officially ordered by the queen of Bright Moon to sit in her girlfriend’s lap. It should be laughable – but it is so very Adora. Voluntarily staying still, staying stagnant, to merely let some aches fade away? No, she would never - Catra is a necessary paperweight.</p><p>And so the two of them are here, because it is technically a Princess Alliance meeting, if only because every princess with a kingdom needs to work together to get them all back on their feet, and thus She-ra is invited, too. Adora came because even without much input to give, she needs to feel like she is doing <em>something</em>.</p><p>“I think the Urron Straight is most important to repair first. It is heavily used and highly central to most of our kingdoms,” Glimmer rambles, waving down at the map projected over the war table.</p><p>“Which one is that?” Catra whispers to Adora, having to only incline her head to the right to whisper into her ear.</p><p>She had directed her question at Adora, but to her left, Bow answers without looking up from the data on his tracker pad. “The one highlighted pink,” he says, voice completely casual, dismissing the words as he says them. And why wouldn’t he? For anyone else, it would be the end of the conversation - an easy answer. Catra feels her tail lash in irritation beneath her, hitting against Adora’s hip.</p><p>Adora gives a false start beneath her, as if startling awake, turning to look at Glimmer. “Sorry, I zoned out a second, are we talking about this passage?” Adora asks, leaning forward to point out a gray, winding road near the center of the map. Catra feels the odd sensation of all the air leaving her lungs at the same time as love breathes into her like a second life.</p><p>She missed this – missed her. She and Adora slip into their old routine like a second skin, even when all the bloodshed between them should have drowned out any caring instinct Adora once held for her long ago. The action is admitting a false moment of weakness to misdirect from Catra’s true vulnerability. It makes Catra curl her fists to keep from twining her fingers with Adora’s and never letting go. Once upon a time that sacrifice would have made her seethe even as she was forced to hide behind it – now she drinks it in as the declaration of love that it is.</p><p>“Adora, you know I treasure you, but are you sure you don’t want to lay down? You really don’t have to be here, you can rest,” Glimmer tells her, looking at her with a pinched expression.</p><p>“I’m sitting still, aren’t I?” Adora asks, with the genuine question of someone who does not know the definition of <em>rest</em>. Glimmer fixes Adora with a pitying look, opening her mouth to push her further. Catra comes to Adora’s rescue.</p><p>To save Adora from her own lie, Catra speaks the truth. She hates the idea of drawing attention to herself here, now, in this room surrounded by ex-enemies and only a few new friends, but she loves the woman beneath her more. <em>She never told them,</em> her mind sings. Besides, Catra is <em>right</em> and Sparkles should know it.</p><p>“We called it something different in the Fright Zone, but the area of the Straight is ill-advised. It might be heavily used most of the time, but the yearly flooding will start next month. Reconstruction will either be halted or actively undone. There would be no alternative route for the two months it floods. Besides, a rockslide cut it off from one of its major roads late last year. No one bothered to fix it then and I doubt they have since Prime landed. The Terran Pass is a better alternative. It hits all the major tributaries that the Straight actually has access to right now, plus a few smaller ones, and it doesn’t have any flooding issues, so it is viable year round while the other roads get built up,” Catra rattles off, leaning forward with a single claw extended to indicate the different areas she is referencing as she speaks.</p><p>She had been focusing on the map as she spoke, finding it easier to list off the complex web of information in her head when she does not have to confront the social side of the interaction – when she does not have to confront the people she has hurt. It is silent for a long moment. Another thought occurs to Catra, and she pushes it forward to keep from screaming at herself for saying <em>anything</em>. “Besides, you could get citizens and supplies through the Terran Pass more easily. Its terrain supports a wider variety of vehicle and traffic types than the Straight,” she adds, words finally coming to a stumbling halt.</p><p>The silence stretches again. She chances a glance around the table to find everybody <em>staring</em> at her. Shit. She should not have spoken. No one expected her to – certainly no one <em>wanted</em> her to. They didn’t even want her here at all – she is just here because for some reason Adora is willing to listen to her, sometimes.</p><p>“<em>How</em> do you know that?” Glimmer asks, incredulous. Catra snaps her head up to find the queen staring at her with a look of confusion and – was she impressed?</p><p>Catra feels her ears fold back, brow wrinkling. “What do you think my job was at the Horde?” she asks, tail thudding anxiously against Adora’s thigh again. She probably should not have brought that up. She probably should have learned five fuck-ups ago to shut her mouth.</p><p>“I don’t know, scheming?” Bow says, thoughtfully, to her left. It actually startles Catra enough to cause her to laugh, but she finds herself slinking back against Adora’s chest. She can feel Adora fixing her with a beaming look, but she does not know <em>why</em>.</p><p>“Catra, I don’t care what you call the Straight – I didn’t know <em>any</em> of that information,” Glimmer says, and this time it is Catra’s turn to stare at the other women incredulously. She finds only encouragement and relief in Glimmer’s eyes. No one else at the table contradicts the queen. Catra feels the ice crystal in her chest melt, just a little.</p><p>They decide to focus on the Terran Pass, instead. Catra spends the rest of the meeting pretending that does not make her heart pound unusually hard in her chest. She also speaks again - only a few times, her knowledge base only applicable to the area the Horde had covered and or been supplied from in their conquests - but to her shock every time, people listen when she speaks.</p><p>When the meeting is over, Glimmer grabs her by the arm, peering up into her eyes and declares, to no one in particular except maybe Adora, “I’m keeping you.”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Sparkles, can I ask you a question?” Catra asks with the restrained calm of a hurricane against storm doors. Glimmer throws her a brilliant smile in response. “<em>What</em> is this filing system?” Catra hisses, glaring at the jigsaw puzzle of a cabinet before her.</p><p>“There wasn’t a system. We were at <em>war</em>, Catra. I just put things where they made sense,” Glimmer says, like it is obvious. Catra stares at the scrolls, piled onto shelves and pouring out of drawers at all angles, and feels her eye twitch.</p><p>“This doesn’t make sense,” Catra replies, evenly, calmly – for her, at least. She thinks she is being as reasonable about this as anyone can expect her to be. She ran an army on an hour of sleep – on a good day – in the middle of a mental breakdown and even <em>she</em> had a system set up. How the Rebellion did not crumble within a month is shocking.</p><p>“It is visual! Colours, shapes, just follow the flow of aesthetics! As long as you can remember what the scroll you need looks like, you can find it!” Glimmer tells her, arm sweeping before the chaos as if that clarifies the horror show before them. Catra just stares at Glimmer and the queen sighs, folding her arms. “Look, I know it is flawed. I have spent three hours looking through it before because I could not remember what the scroll I needed looked like. But I just don’t have the mental capacity for alphabetizing or whatever, okay? That is not my thing.”</p><p>Catra closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. She knows a thing or two about not being able to work within the defined system, but clearly this one is not working either – especially won’t work if Catra is going to carry on being Glimmer’s advisor.</p><p>Catra turns to Glimmer, placing both hands on her shoulders. “Well I do. I’m going to make a new system, and I’m going to fix you,” she tells the queen. She thinks it could be taken as patronizing, but-</p><p>She and Glimmer understand each other, now. Glimmer smiles at her, bright and relieved.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>A few weeks in the rebellion and a suit was all it took - she told them. Told a secret unspoken since she was a kitten, unknown to all but her and Adora. Unable to pick out her new suit’s colour on her own, she turned to Adora and found only unwavering help and support, but Glimmer was suspicious.</p><p>And so she told them, voluntarily.</p><p>“I can’t see the way normal people do. I can’t see what they see,” she had admitted.</p><p>Glimmer had looked her in the eye and said a word that changed her life.</p><p><em>Colourblind</em>.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>She finds books on it. Books on vision, books on differences between species, and even variety within species. She finds some species are more prone to it than others. She finds hardly any information specific to her – she knows, now, she is a magicat, even if that has little meaning to her or anyone else. They are rare, now, but a little bit of passing information in one of the books tells her this is <em>standard</em> for her kind.</p><p>It makes her breath catch, tears falling unbidden onto the page. Her entire life she has been hiding, and a few words in ink set her <em>free</em>.</p><p>She leaves the library, going to their room – her and Adora’s – and crawling into her girlfriend’s arms without hesitation or explanation. Adora holds her, soothes her, doesn’t ask what is wrong. She just comforts her, whispering assurances and sweet nothing as she scratches her ears and pets down her back. Eventually, Catra regains the ability to form words.</p><p>“I spent so long hiding how I was – how I saw. I thought if anyone ever found out they would use it to hurt me, or as another reason to hate me. But it’s normal.”</p><p>She draws a shuddering breath. Melog gives a gentle trill beside her.</p><p>“It’s normal.”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>Catra forces herself not to glance over her shoulder. It has been months since she was last in the Bright Moon Tailors, but the assistants who flit about the store still make her nervous – still remind her of the clones on Prime’s ship, even as the one-year anniversary of his defeat looms closer.</p><p>Soon there will be an annual celebration ball, the first in a hopefully long line, to be held in honour of the end of the war. And for it, Catra needs formal wear – different formal wear than what she already wears whenever she has to do something fancy and ceremonial as the Royal Advisor to the queen of Bright Moon.</p><p>“Okay, I need you to be totally honest, Catra: what are the chances of us getting you in a dress?” Bow asks, deadly serious. Glimmer actually laughs at the suggestion. Catra bristles, but she knows she is probably right.</p><p>Adora is not here to help this time. Adora wanted to surprise Catra with her outfit, so she came earlier in the week with Glimmer and Bow to pick something out. Now it is Catra’s turn.</p><p>Catra scoffs at Bow’s suggestion. “Absolute zero,” she tells him, turning away from the rack of gowns where he stands. She finds herself face-to-face with Glimmer. The queen narrows her eyes at her, a grin slowly breaking out across her face. “What?” Catra asks, somewhat nervously, tail swishing behind her.</p><p>“Nothing,” Glimmer says, false innocent, turning away and pulling a black dress off a rack as if by coincidence. The top is low-cut, plunging, and a slit makes its way up the thigh of the tight shift. “Just thinking how shocked Adora was the first time she saw you in a suit. Can you imagine her face if she saw you in a dress? She would probably make a fool of herself,” Glimmer laughs. Cocky, confident, sure of herself.</p><p>Damn her.</p><p>Catra snatches the sample with narrowed eyes, not breaking the glare she fixes Glimmer with even as she feels a blush heat her cheeks. Bow starts cheering.</p><p>Catra still picks up a few suits. She also picks up a few dresses, all skintight to make them at least less unwieldy. As she picks each design, Glimmer makes an offhand comment about how she thinks that shade of blue would go well with her eyes, or how this red would match well with Adora’s secret outfit. No one mentions why she does it.</p><p>It takes effort for her to. Sometimes Catra holds something, unsure, and glances between Bow and Glimmer before one of them remembers and makes a comment on the colour. They never make her ask outright. Even if compensating for her vision does not come as naturally to them as it does Adora, they make the effort with all the casual love and acceptance that Adora always has.</p><p>Her friends take care of her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My mother is borderline-colourblind (she passes some tests, fails others) but I’m not personally. I tried to portray it as respectfully as possible, but please let me know if I messed it up! It also is a bit different since it isn’t the traditional red-green colourblind that humans have.<br/>In my interpretation of canon, Catra is one of the last Magicats left on Etheria. We know they were explorers who landed on Etheria and were obviously stuck there once it went In Despondos, so I imagine their already-small numbers suffered over time. Thus, I don’t think much info would be known about them, much less be easily available to Catra, which is part of why she is so confused by her vision.<br/>If you want to know more about the glossed-over reveal I cover it in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415800">i still know the new you</a>. I tried to summarize it without retreading the ground of that fic too much.<br/>I don’t think Catra is a dress person like at all, but I think it is reasonable to say she would be willing to wear one for a day occasionally, especially to make her girlfriend’s brain melt.<br/>EDIT: after a month I've made the executive decision to add this to my Outside of the War series because everyone has been really supportive of me keeping her colourblind in that and at this point it has worked its way into enough of the fics it is kind of inextricable.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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